Chinese New Year

We added a little variety into our Winter Unit this week. In celebration of the Chinese New Year we spend a few days learning about China. It's the year of the Dragon, in China the dragon is quite special and very much revered. The dragon symbolizes power and wisdom.
To begin, we found China on the globe & looked at the map of China. I found a great book on celebrating the Chinese New Year at a local teacher supply store. It was the perfect amount of information for a preschooler.

 This is the national flag of China. It consists of a red background and five golden-yellow stars. It represents revolution. I gave B a star punch to make the small ones, the large one was pre-drawn.

We also learned about the Great Wall of China. Although B refers to it as 'Wall of China'. We used our building blocks (only the red ones) to build our own Wall.

 Practical life skill: B also tried using chopsticks to sort the red & yellow pom poms. It took a lot of practice but he finally got it.

 B's chopstick technique...not perfect, but it worked.

The Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao Jie is a traditional Chinese festival, celebrated on the 15th of the first month of the Chinese New Year.

The festival marks the end of the celebrations of the Chinese New Year.

This is a fun festival where people flock to the streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon, watching lions or dragon dancing, playing Chinese riddles and games, and lighting up firecrackers. We watched a YouTube video on the dragon dances, since we didn't make it to the actual celebration in town. We also attempted to make our own lanterns, which turned out to be a little harder than I expected for B. Cutting multiple straight lines was not something he was interested in.

Then of course what would a study of China be with out eating Chinese food. We went to our favorite local Chinese restaurant and enjoyed a tasty lunch.

 

Hope you enjoyed our trip through China. We'll discover more about China when we focus on our global units.